


Sandy Skin

by Helcat13



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: #getwreckt, Food, Introspection, Racism, Racist Language, Self-Indulgent, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 17:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7583026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helcat13/pseuds/Helcat13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are three things that Chowder knows are important when dealing with life. These are the lessons he learned from them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sandy Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so this is my first and probably only fic I will ever do. I have story ideas that will never see the light of day, but this hit me like a freight train and it needed to be written. Like, I'm happy that Chowder is a prominent character that subverts a lot of stereotypes of how Asian men are portrayed (super into hockey, gets the girl, is a bright spot of sunlight in this dark and gloomy world) but I made the mistake of going through all the fic that AO3 has, and there really isn't any character introspection for this sweet summer child. I also just finished going through omgeverythingplease.tumblr.com and the tweets really just adds everything I wanted but I need more. This is also an open call for betas because I got two more chapters planned but IDK what I'm doing. So to all the West coast Asians in the fandom, help a native New York ABC out because I haven't been to San Francisco since I was four and in the back of my head, I feel that racism shows up differently on each coast.

Chris is four when he learns about sharks.

It’s hard to remember things when he’s that small, but what he does remember is vivid. It’s Chinese New Years, and everybody has gathered in his grandparent’s house in Oakland for the dinner. There is red everywhere, his aunt’s and uncle’s eyes bear down on him as he says Gūnghéi Faatchòi as nice as he can and bows his thanks for the red envelope, he can’t stop eating the candy and the weird sugar rocks, and his Yèhyèh is sick. Chris remembers the times when Yèhyèh could get up really, really early to go to the park and then come home to go to work and come home and play with him and his cousins and then come home and help Màhmàh move things around. Yèhyèh is super strong (almost as strong as Superman!) and he knows all these cool things and been to really cool places but right now he sits in his chair, not moving as much and smiling with a grey look to his face. 

He escapes to the kitchen when he doesn’t want to play anymore and decides to hide under the table and watches his Màhmàh directs his mom and aunts as she stands over the stove. There’s a pot that he has never seen before. It’s a pretty white thing, covered in pretty ladies as they dance and play their instruments in their garden. Màhmàh carefully places the pot into another pot and stands guard over it as it cooks like it’s the only thing that’s there. 

And then it’s dinner time, and everyone comes rushing in to take their seats. There are oohs and aahs as they dig into their tōngyùhn and the fish and the dumplings and the vegetables and the noodles. But Chris notices that only the adults, starting with Yèhyèh first, eat the soup that came out of the pretty pot. 

“Màhmāh, what are you eating?” 

“It’s shark fin soup.”

“What’s a shark fin?”

“It comes from a shark. You know how there are flippers on a fish?” Chris looks over at the little flaps that have just been pulled off of the carp in front of him.

“Like that, Màhmāh?”

“Sort of but bigger. We’re eating it because your grandfather has been feeling sick and the medicine man said that eating this soup will make him feel better.”

“Why?”

“Because it will give him more energy. Right now grandpa has been losing a lot and he needs to eat better.”

“Can I try some?”

“Of course.” She brings the spoon to the soup and then to her mouth to cool it. As it comes closer, he can see that it’s really brown and thick, with pieces of mushroom, ham, and clear noodles. He can taste the saltiness of the ham, the squishy crunch of the mushrooms and noodles, and some pepper at the end.

“Where’s the shark fin?”

“You just had some, silly.”

“But where? There were only noodles and mushrooms and ham?”

“The noodles were the shark’s fin.” 

Chris screwed up his face. “But it didn’t tasted like anything!”

Màhmāh laughed softly as she brushed back his hair. “It’s not meant to taste like anything. Sometimes, things that are good for you will taste like nothing or really badly. That’s how you know that it’s working. It’s becoming used to these things that you can become stronger. The world becomes a better place when you get used to the bad stuff.”

Chris decides then and there to only eat sweets because the world really needs to be a nicer place if they can focus on the good things.

He also looks up sharks the next time he goes to the library. He guesses that if sharks can swim forever, that means Yèhyèh can go on forever too.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't realized it, I use a lot of accents. This is because I'm using the Yale romanization for Cantonese pronunciation. I feel that lot of people think nowadays that Chinese = Mandarin, but Cantonese is what I grew up with and so that is how I'm portraying Chowder. I mean there is a Cantonese pinyin but nobody is going to understand how to read Gung1 hei2 faat3 coi4 compared to Gūnghéi Faatchòi. If you need help figuring out pronunciations, I found this [site](http://www.chinese-lessons.com/cantonese/vocabFamily.htm) to be the most helpful. If there are any other pronunciations or clarifications you need to know, leave a comment below.
> 
> I would also like to note that it is extremely, highly unlikely that Chowder's granny would make shark fin soup from scratch at home. It is first and foremost a luxury item that you would find at a banquet. It is plausible to be served shark fin at a Chinese New Year's dinner. However, in my experience, this would be served as part of a dinner service that you paid a reservation for at a restaurant that is only available during New Years. I'm just using Chinese traditional medicine as a plot point and not as an actual recommendation for your health.


End file.
